Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Rollo, I said SLI is beneficial in a handful of games because:
1) only Doom 3 and Far Cry REALLY benefit from it. All other games are already fast on X800XT and faster cards. HL2 with SLI is not much faster than the fastest aTI card
There is some sense to this, BUT this leaves the whole 6600GT/6800NU sli out of the equation, while both are mid range on their own, they both get to high range in SLI and offer the WMV9 hardware decode that many here care much about? And are
much more reasonably priced- the cheapest 6800GT PCI on newegg is $450, so a GT SLI rig costs about $900 from about the only vendor I'll deal with anymore. Chumbo, who I also trust, has that $850 deal, highly allocated, which in my experience means hope you hit their lottery in your lifetime.
2) going from 80+ to 160+ frames in older games isnt what I consider a benefit.
While more fps is always preferable, I agree with this to some extent too. 6800GT/U SLI is about starting at 16X12 4X8X and going up though, and 6600GTs are about being able to play 12X10 2-4X8X very well on a $380 PCIE rig, or having very fast 16X12 0X ?X.
Investing into 2 6600GTs for SLI is a total waste of money as they cost more than 6800GT and are a lot more times slower than faster.
There is no financial loss in buying 6600GT SLI now. They cost less than PCIE GTs, and provide a similar gaming experience at the playable settings. I could link benchmarks, but you can check my SLI thread for that if you like.
Finally, he already has a fast S754 system. Why not upgrade to a faster AGP card, and instead of dumping money for a few games that he'll notice the benefit with SLI, why not dump it into a 939 socket 6 months from now along with new generation of cards and possibly ATI SLI if he wants to and faster cpus once they do arrive to take advantage of the faster videocards?
There is some sense there as well, but he said he's considering upgrading his motherboard now? Why is it important to you he hang on to his old tech 9800Pro, that is slower in every game, has no WMV9 decode, and no SM3?
Why do you always try to find flaws in people's posts? The point of each post is not so much about the facts, but the main idea or issue. In your post, you've done nothing but criticize my post, providing little opinion as to what the OP should do.
I'm not try to find flaws with your post, stating I disagree.
By recommending 6600 and SLI board, you clearly havnet thought of the fact that he could drop $400 into a 10x better videocard and keep the current platform for a little longer. Not everyone on these forums buys 10000 videocards "for fun" like you (or a new motherboard every 6 months, etc).
I was answering the question, just with a different answer than you? I don't see spending $400 on a AGP card now if you want to make the move to PCIE SLI. The PCIE SLI motherboard can surely last him this year and next.
